Miss Spitfire by Sarah Miller Page A

isn’t strong enough to make me rip the child from her doting father’s arms.
    If I try to brush Helen’s hair, she yelps, and Mrs. Keller swoops in to save her. When I refuse her a sweet, she screams, and the captain demands peace. If I correct her table manners, the entire family cringes. When she runs from my lessons, Mrs. Keller shields her.
    Each time she kicks up a fuss, her parents rush to her side, though I’ve yet to see Helen cry from anything but anger or frustration. It doesn’t matter how reasonable my demands are, or how unreasonable Helen’s desires—tears are a crime. I think the captain in particular would let her run wild, naked, and filthy, feasting on nothing but cake and jam if it would keep her from crying.
    And what about me? I have no shelter from Helen’s abuse, no encouragement, cheer, or any sign at all that the Kellers understand my struggles. My heart is pitted with their indifference. Only a crumb of praise would be nourishment enough.
    Oh, they’re polite to me, of course. Hospitable,even kind. But after so many days with no progress, I feel more and more like an extended houseguest, another of many small inconveniences life with Helen forces them to bear.
    When Helen cries, though, I become an ogre in their eyes. I can’t help it—it’s useless for me to try to teach her language or anything else until she learns to obey me. Every lesson is an endurance trial, though all it takes to subdue her is a bit of backbone. But how can I discipline her under the family’s nose? This place is stifling me, and Helen, too, though she doesn’t know it. If only I could help her realize, as I did, how much more she could be.
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    From the moment I hear tell of places where the blind are taught to read and write, my mind is set. “I’m going to school when I grow up,” I proclaim. Some of the inmates laugh at my grand notions, scoffing at the idea that a blind child could learn anything at all. “She’ll be walking out of here someday on the arm of the emperor of Penzance,” they jeer. Even Jimmie says, “You ain’t either. You’re going to stay here with me.” But when their backs are turned, others tell me, “Sanborn, Frank B. Sanborn is the man you want to see about going to school.” Time passes, and my conviction never wavers. I nurse my dream in secret, imagining a day when I can read for myself, without begging Tilly to lend me her eyes.
    When Jimmie dies, the hope of school is all I have left for comfort, but no one cares. One solemn old woman scolds, “Education doesn’t make any difference if the Lord wills otherwise.”
    â€œI don’t see what the Lord has to do with it,” I flare back at her. “And all the same, I’m going to school when I grow up!” After that they mutter at my insolence but leave me be.
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    How I wish the Kellers would do the same. No matter where I go, I never fit. Too wild, too willful, even for my own family. At Tewksbury my eyes made me a nuisance, and my notions were too grand. At Perkins, too, I was all wrong. Poor and ignorant, a Catholic among Protestants, I could have told them things about the world outside their fine homes that would have stripped the giggles from their throats. And what am I here? The contrary, outspoken northerner.
    Next morning I’m only brushing Helen’s hair, but she bawls like a bloodhound on the trail. When Mrs. Keller bursts into the room, she finds me sitting on the edge of the bed with Helen in front of me. My knees clutch Helen’s sides, keeping her arms at bay, and my booted feet are crossed round her middle. I’m wielding the brush with considerable force, one hand grasping Helen’s throat and chin to stop her jerking about.
    â€œMiss Annie,” she begins, clasping her hands, “is this really